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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPakistani death squads go after informants to U.S. drone program
PESHAWAR, Pakistan The death squad shows up in uniform: black masks and tunics with the name of the group, Khorasan Mujahedin, scrawled across the back in Urdu.
Pulling up in caravans of Toyota Corolla hatchbacks, dozens of them seal off mud-hut villages near the Afghan border, and then scour markets and homes in search of tribesmen they suspect of helping to identify targets for the armed U.S. drones that routinely buzz overhead.
Once theyve snatched their suspect, they dont speed off, villagers say. Instead, the caravan leaves slowly, a trademark gesture meant to convey that they expect no retaliation.
Militant groups lack the ability to bring down the drones, which have killed senior al-Qaida and Taliban commanders as well as many foot soldiers. Instead, a collection of them have banded together to form Khorasan Mujahedin in the North Waziristan tribal region to hunt for those who sell information about the location of militants and their safe houses.
Pakistani officials and tribal elders maintain that most of those who are abducted this way are innocent, but after being beaten, burned with irons or scalded with boiling water, almost all eventually confess. And few ever come back.
http://www.stripes.com/news/pakistani-death-squads-go-after-informants-to-u-s-drone-program-1.164746
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Can you imagine? They just grab people they think might have been collaborating with their enemies, torture them, maybe even kill them, and they just act with total impunity! No due process, no witnesses against the accused, no right to counsel, and who knows how long some of these poor devils are held or under what conditions? I wonder if the people grabbed even know why - that is, the specific event?
It would be outrageous and the United States should surely do something about it. Except . . .
Robb
(39,665 posts)...to get back at innocent families they didn't like, siccing authorities on innocent legitimate businessmen.
North Waziristan looks more like 1980's Sicily than anything else.